Dundee is the city of rediscovery

Glistening by the side of the silvery Tay, Dundee now basks in its rich heritage, says Wilma Paterson as she returns home to find her birthplace transformed

There is no toll charge on the bridge from Fife to Dundee, but it costs 80p to go back — it’s the only reason anyone ever stays there. There are many jokes about Dundee, most of them made, it has to be said, by Dundonians like myself brought up on a diet of self-deprecation that lingers long after we have left the much-maligned city. But now I’m back in town, doing the tourist thing, staying in a chic boutique hotel on the waterfront, marvelling at Dundee’s transformation.

When I left, aged 17, the desecration of my home town was well under way. The city fathers had started their improvement works in the 1870s with the demolition of most of medieval Dundee, and by the end of the 1960s they had got rid of it all.

The destruction of districts such as Overgate and Hawkhill ripped the heart and soul out of